Motion sickness is the result of a simple conflict between your bodily senses and the motion you are currently experiencing. When signals received by the eyes don’t match those being understood by your inner ear (the center of balance in the human body), motion sickness occurs. For example, if you’re in the cabin of a cruise ship, your inner ear will sense the movement of the boat, but your eyes don’t register that movement. The effect is the same if you’re reading in a traveling car.

Symptoms of Motion Sickness

You’re probably very familiar already with the symptoms of motion sickness, which include:

• paleness of the skin
• nausea
• sweating
• and ultimately vomiting

Some people are more prone to motion sickness than others and cars, boats, trains, taxis, and planes are all triggers of motion sickness. Children between 2 and 12 are more susceptible to motion sickness while infants and toddlers are relatively immune to it. Most individuals, given enough stimuli, will experience motion sickness in the right conditions.

Preventative Measures for Motion Sickness

It’s no fun being on a cruise ship or tour boat on your trip and suffering from motion sickness, but there are a number of preventative measures people can take to avoid motion sickness, including:

• Have a light meal before you travel (empty and very full stomachs react worse to motion sickness)
• Consider over-the-counter aids, including patches,wrist bands, pills, and nasal sprays
• Have club soda and light crackers on hand to settle your stomach

Also, if you notice a feeling of nausea, put down the book or craft project, focus out the window or on the horizon and take slow, deep breaths. This can often still the immediate sensations, ‘re-set’ your body’s awareness of the motion, and calm the motion sickness.

Volunteer vacations are often short-term service vacations where the travelers live and work with people who are in a position of needing help from the global community. That help may be due to natural disasters, famine, poverty, disease and more. Volunteers usually try to match their skills and abilities with the opportunities available.

Although a few service projects pay a stipend to volunteers, in most cases the volunteer funds the entirety of their own costs (sometimes through fund-raisers back home). Volunteer vacations do not include luxury accommodations, but the organization often provides extensive pre-trip information, introduces you to the team, and helps you deal with local officials (when necessary). Volunteers are expected to do the work presented to them and often prepare their own meals, clean up, and care for the facilities where they are staying. Information about how volunteer vacations work can be reviewed at Volunteer Guide.

Volunteer Opportunities

Different volunteer organizations offer varying opportunities, but some of the things volunteers can do include:

• Repairing and painting buildings
• Teaching children
• Rebuilding destroyed homes, churches, and schools
• Caring for at-risk or abandoned children
• Providing medical and/or dental care
• Protecting animals
• even repairing and restoring hiking trails in America

Risks to Volunteers

People of all ages – teens, families, retirees – take volunteer vacations for a variety of personal reasons, but travel to locations that are hard-hit by hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters poses a risk for the volunteers.

It’s important to understand that many volunteering organizations have travel insurance for their volunteers, but many do not.

Take a look at our missionary/volunteer travel health insurance information to understand the risks, what coverage you need, and where to get it. Even if your volunteer organization provides some coverage, you may want to have your own (just in case).

Either way, as an informed traveler, even if the volunteer organization does include travel insurance with their service, it’s important to check the policy and verify that it will protect you. After all, you’re no help to those you’ve come to help if you are injured or very ill.

Matching Volunteers to Opportunities

Some websites that match volunteers with different activities are the following (but be sure to do your own research into which volunteer organization is right for you):

• GlobeAware
• Global Volunteers
• International Volunteer Programs Association
• Volunteer Abroad Opportunities

You can also read this 2010 article on how to find the right volunteer vacation.

One of the items most travelers would prefer not to include on a list of travel experiences is picking up a nasty disease. In the past, we’ve published posts on how to protect yourself from travel-related diseases, how to check the latest traveler’s health reports for your destination, as well as health concerns for travelers in underdeveloped countries.

The following are the top 5 easiest-to-get and worst traveler’s diseases we’ve heard about.

1. Hepatitis A, which is one of the most common diseases contracted through poorly-cooked food, contaminated water,  and unsafe sex. While a vaccine is available, it’s always a good idea to make sure the food you eat is clean and well cooked.
2. Montezuma’s Revenge, which is the common term for any case of traveler’s diarrhea and earned it’s moniker from travelers visiting Mexico. Of course, this hazard isn’t isolated to Mexico and can occur just about anywhere due to different levels of immunity to different types of bacteria sometimes found in food or water consumed by the traveler.
3. Dengue Fever, which is well known in Thailand, the South Pacific and in Africa and spreading to new regions (see the official Dengue map). According to the CDC, dengue fever, also known as ‘breakbone fever’, affects as many as 100 million people every year and is spread by mosquitoes.
4. Malaria, which is another disease spread by mosquitoes, is treatable if you get it and preventable if you prepare. You can request anti-malaria pills from your doctor prior to traveling in Asia, Africa, and South America where malaria cases are common.
5. Lyme Disease, which is a danger particular to North America and spread by tick bites and presents itself as severe headaches and a fever. The best prevention? Bug repellent.

Of course, while not specifically a disease, parasites also present trouble for travelers. Parasites come in a variety of forms but generally tapeworms, intestinal parasites and amoeba are the most common. Humans pick up tapeworms and intestinal parasites from unwashed fruits and veggies or contaminated water. Amoeba can be found in natural mineral pools and they enter through the nose when a visitor submerges. So, know your water and food sources and have appropriate travel medical coverage. You know – just in case.

It’s probably no surprise to anyone that cruise lines make a little extra money by offering you cell phone service. This is because they can offer connections to land-based mobile networks.

But here’s the problem: you’re still paying international roaming rates.

Cell phones typically operate on land-based systems that work when the phone can be in contact with cell towers. On a cruise ship, your phone needs to access the satellites to reach the network instead. Some phones from various carriers don’t automatically connect to satellites either, so they use the cruise ship service which turns a cell call into satellite data, but that costs money and this is where they make a little extra off unaware cruise passengers.

It may not be clear in their brochures, but if you use your cell phone out of sight of land, you are automatically using the cruise ship’s service and you’ll be billed through your regular phone service at a cost that’s as high as $3-$5 per minute.

1. If you have a data plan in place, turn off your phone’s data roaming option so e-mail won’t be automatically downloaded at the roaming rates. Your data plan may be used if you receive text messages with image attachments as this traveler was surprised to learn.
2. If you have to make a call, wait until the ship docks so you can connected to the less expensive land-based cell towers. That is as long as your phone will work in that country; otherwise, you’ll be paying international rates.
3. Turn off your phone when you’re not using it. You’ll be charged for calls that ring through, but not those that go directly to voice mail when the phone is turned off.

Often, when people purchase travel insurance, they don’t think about all the extra fees and travel costs. It’s important to remember that only pre-paid travel costs are covered under the trip cancellation, trip interruption, and ‘cancel for any reason’ coverage. That means it’s important to pre-pay for travel fees such as airline surcharges – airlines add extra fees for items like peak holiday travel days ($10-$50), seat selection, and more.

If you pre-pay for those fees, and include them in the total trip cost when you enroll in your travel insurance plan, those fees are more likely to be reimbursed as long as you cancel or abandon your trip for a covered reason.

Insure pre-paid hotel rates

Many hotels – especially during the busy holiday seasons – offer packages and rate discounts for travelers who purchase and pay for their rooms ahead of time. In many cases, those deals are 100% non refundable, which makes those trip costs perfect candidates for inclusion in your total trip cost. Pre-pay for your lodging, then include those costs in your total trip costs when you enroll in your plan and as long as you cancel for a covered reason, they’ll be reimbursed as well.

Note: If you have to cancel your trip,  let the hotel know as soon as possible. If they can re-book the room with another traveler, they may wave their usual cancellation penalties.

Be wary of longer trip delays due to fewer flights

Some airlines have cut flights in anticipation of reduced passenger traffic due to the continuing recession. Many experts are recommending travelers book the first flight of the day because (like getting the first doctor appointment of the day) schedules haven’t yet had a chance to get backed up.

When a scheduled flight is canceled late in the day, the next available flight may not leave until the following day and even if it does leave, it may already be full of other passengers so you could get bumped even further down the line. Consider a travel insurance plan with travel delay coverage, which can reimburse tired travelers for unexpected meal and lodging expenses when a trip’s departure or return is delayed. There is typically a per-day limit and a minimum delay, but if things get really iffy, at least you’ll have some reimbursement.

To understand the problem see what the airlines owe you when a travel delay occurs.

Purchasing the right travel insurance plan depends on a number of factors:

• What kind of traveler you are – business travelers have different needs from vacationers.
• Who you are traveling with – family travelers have different needs than singles.
• Where you are traveling – travel to a remote island with limited medical care is different than heading to a big city.
• What you plan to do on your trip – scuba divers have different travel insurance needs than retirees.

1. Know WHEN to purchase your policy. Sure, a traveler can purchase a quick travel insurance plan right before they leave, but in choosing to wait you miss out on important coverage including: pre-existing medical conditions, ‘cancel for any reason’, ‘cancel for work reasons’, financial default, hurricanes, and work conflicts. Purchasing your policy soon after making your initial trip payment (10-14 days is required by most plans) means you’ll have access to these time-limited coverages. Read more here: When should I buy my travel insurance?
2. Know what coverage you NEED in your plan. To best understand what coverage you need, you’ll need to think about: a) the risks, b) the exclusions in the plan, and c) your comfort level. If you’re planning to ski the back country in Switzerland, for example, you’ll need to check your plan to see if it covers that sport. If it’s excluded, you’ll have to look into adding an adventure sports option and perhaps increase the medical coverage limits to meet your comfort level. If you have been to the doctor to treat any illness or injury during the plan’s look-back period, consider whether it’s necessary to have a policy that provides coverage for pre-existing medical and purchase it within the required number of days after making your first trip payment (see step 1). Read more here: What travel insurance doesn’t cover.
3. Know what coverage you can LEAVE OUT. Not everyone needs ‘Cancel for any reason’ coverage, for example, because the covered reasons for trip cancellation are quite broad. Of course, we recommend you carefully review the plan you choose and think about the circumstances you could encounter before your trip, but if the risks are covered by the policy, there’s no need to add the extra coverage. Read more here: When travel insurance is not necessary.

As airline passengers struggle to keep their travel fees down, many now pack everything they need for a trip into carry-on bags that will (hopefully!) fit into the overhead bins. What’s the result?

• Ridiculously slow security lines
• Overcrowded bins
• Slower boarding and debarking times

The result for airlines, however, has been a whopping $3.4 billion in 2010 according to CBS News.

For now, most airlines are not charging passengers for carry-on items, but that may soon change if airlines begin following Ryanair, which does.

Some travelers have begun avoiding baggage fees by wearing their luggage:

• An innovative product called the SCOTTEVEST has between 20 and 30 pockets and compartments into which passengers can stuff their stuff. This company also sells travel pants with numerous pockets for more stuff.
• Another travel solution is completely wearable luggage called Jaktogo, which is touted as “a practical all-in-one travel solution for people on the go.” The jacket or bag comes with 14 different sized pockets.
• For parents trying to carry a baby and the diaper bag, the new Sidekick Bliss is a baby bag and child carrier in one. They advertise the ability to “create  a comfortable, reliable nest for a baby of up to 35 pounds.”

The charges for checked luggage are probably the most hated airline fees out there and every major airline except Southwest charges to check the bags you used to hand over for free. (JetBlue, British Airways, Air Canada, and Lufthansa allow one bag free, but you pay after the first). The fee for the first bag is typically around $20, but the charges go up from there.

Unfortunately, as much as the baggage fees are despised, there seems to be no end to the airlines dreaming up new ways to rob passengers. They’ve eliminated all creature comforts, free drinks and snacks, and added an amazing array of charges. You can now expect to pay extra for calling to make a reservation, making a flight change, using their cheap headsets, even blanket and pillows come at a price. See our 2011 airline baggage fees chart for more details.

In a relatively new development, however, some airlines around the globe are beginning to or considering charging for carry-on luggage despite the fact that they are already earning billions in checked luggage fees. In a recent article on MainStreet.com, the airlines earned $3.4 billion in baggage fees in 2010.

One airline in particular, Ryanair is now charging passengers for overweight carry-ons (despite the fact that the passenger is doing all the work) and even implementing a charge for passengers to use of toilets! Now, we understand the weight limit issues, but some reports indicate that airport staff are being offered cash bonuses for catching Ryanair passengers with heavy carry-on luggage, which is certain to generate an unfriendly environment between staff and passengers.

While we’re pointing out one airline here, they all seem to be similarly guilty (Southwest is the exception) – are they trying to drive passengers away?